Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on (a) the number of requests for new needs assessments for education, health and care plans from upper-tier local authorities and (b) the number of such requests that have been open for more than 20 weeks.

The requested information is available in the National Statistics publication on education, health and care (EHC) plans, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans.

The latest available data shows that 93,300 initial requests were made for an assessment for an EHC plan during 2021. Of requests which led to a new EHC plan made during 2021, 34,249 (59.9%) were issued within 20 weeks.